Hackers on the rise despite enterprise security measures

Security breaches have affected at least two-thirds of organisations in the past two years, according to new research.

A new Forrester study commissioned by Centrify found that hackers compromised more than one billion identities throughout 2016 alone.

“Cybersecurity breaches are causing more havoc and affecting more industries than ever before,” said Tom Kemp, CEO of Centrify.

“Despite over US$75 billion spent on cybersecurity in 2016, the products and services from major security companies have failed to stop breaches from occurring, and in fact, the problem is getting worse. This clearly indicates that traditional approaches are flat out not working in this age of access.”

Although Forrester’s report is based on a US survey, its findings reinforce warnings from other research, such as last year’s Gemalto Threat Index report which showed Australia leading the APAC region for reported data breaches. This subject will receive much greater scrutiny as Australia’s new mandatory data breach notification law takes effect.

For years now, organisations have relied on a well-defined boundary, supported by digital walls and gatekeepers, to protect their assets. But today, with the rapid introduction of new technologies, platforms, applications and practices, that border has disintegrated, resulting in significant exposure for the global enterprise.

With 90% of all enterprises moving to the cloud, and billions of users accessing data across millions of applications, enterprises face an increasingly complex digital canvas of identities. These identities live in and out of the enterprise, creating a new dimension in security. Most are accessed by one simple password.

“Organisations need to completely rethink their security approach, and in today’s world of access they must increase their identity and access management (IAM) maturity to more effectively reduce the likelihood of a data breach,” said Kemp.

In fact, the study concluded that 83% of organisations do not have a mature approach to identity and access management (IAM), resulting in twice as many breaches and US$5 million more in costs.

The study further concluded that 91% of organisations with the most mature IAM stances gravitate towards integrated IAM platforms, rather than relying on multiple point solutions, and spend 40% less on technology. The more mature IAM approach showed direct correlation to reduced security risk, improved productivity, increased privileged activity management and greatly reduced financial loss over their less mature counterparts.

Organisations with the highest IAM maturity experience half the number of breaches as the least mature. For instance, they are 46% less likely to suffer a server or application breach, 51% less likely to suffer a database breach and 63% less likely to suffer a cloud infrastructure breach.

Organisations with the least IAM maturity averaged over 12 breaches, more than twice the number of breaches of the most mature, and endure more than US$5 million more in financial damage.

Mature companies spend more on overall IT security compared with the least mature companies, but actually spend 40% less on IAM technology as a percentage of their entire budget. This translates into an additional cost savings of US$2,582,000, which not only makes these organisations more capital efficient, but also allows them to better streamline their IT infrastructure by eliminating redundant IAM technologies.

In this study, Forrester concluded that a maturity hierarchy exists in the marketplace. The most mature groups employ more IAM approaches as well as use integrated IAM technology platforms to reduce security risk and may avoid millions in data breach costs over their less mature counterparts.

Image credit: ©Lollo/Dollar Photo Club

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